


air

by ssstrychnine



Category: Mad Max Series (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/F, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Meet-Cute, Pre-Relationship, meeting on a plane
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-10
Updated: 2016-02-10
Packaged: 2018-05-19 10:47:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,145
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5964513
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ssstrychnine/pseuds/ssstrychnine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>on a plane, angharad falls asleep on capable's shoulder. written for the february monthly challenge for the femslash big bang 2016, the prompt was meet-cute.</p>
            </blockquote>





	air

It’s not a long flight, so Capable lets the other girl sleep. She herself is unable to sleep on a plane, something about the way the clouds speed passed under them, something about the crackling of frost at the windows. She presses her nose to the plastic and looks out for landmarks and points of light all the way down. Except of course, there is a girl asleep on her shoulder this time, so she can’t press her nose against anything. She listens to music at a low volume. She braids small pieces of her hair. 

At the airport before her flight she’d seen the girl. Tall and tired and beautiful. Capable hadn’t been able to stop staring at the thousand shades of gold of her hair and the thousand shades of storm of her eyes. The girl had caught her staring, of course, and she had scowled, and that was when Capable noticed the scars, bridging her cheekbone, cross-hatching her forehead. Capable had blushed and turned away and now this girl was murmuring nonsense in her sleep, her hair falling across her face, tickling Capable’s collarbone. 

She knows that she should wake her, she knows that if it were her asleep on a stranger she’d want to be woken up. But this girl of gold and storms is frowning in her sleep and she’d looked so tired sitting in the airport with her foot tapping out annoyance on the ugly carpet. Capable will let her sleep and steel herself for what happens when she wakes up, whatever brand of anger that comes out of embarrassment.

They’re halfway there when the girls dreams get louder. She starts to tremble feverishly against Capable’s side, sweat beads her forehead and she grabs at Capable’s shirt with desperate hands and whatever she’s saying, Capable can’t make sense of it, gets more insistent, more _scared_. Without thinking Capable turns to her, puts her hands on her shoulders, leans in closer.

“You’re okay,” she murmurs against the girls temple, her breath stirring her hair. “You’re alright, you’re safe.” The girl shivers, a whole body shudder that Capable feels under her hands like a wave breaking. Her breathing steadies and her hands relax from their grip on the buttons of Capable’s shirt. She quiets and quiets until she’s just the stranger on Capable’s shoulder again. Not stuck in some terrible dream, just asleep and sighing. Capable lets go of her.

She wakes up three quarters of the way through the flight. She’s been asleep for three hours. Capable will miss the warmth of her against her side, her gold hair, her scars, like silvery cobwebs sewn into her skin. It’s silly that she will miss any part of it, a stranger on her shoulder, but Capable has been alone for a long time and she’s a girl made to be with people.

They’re an hour away from landing and the girl stirs and yawns and opens her eyes. Capable freezes like she’s been caught doing something wrong and the girl startles away from her like she’s been stung. Her scowl comes back, drawing down her eyebrows and hardening the line of her mouth, but Capable still thinks she is beautiful.

“You looked like you needed the sleep,” says Capable, by way of an explanation. The girl wipes a hand across her mouth, scowls a little harder, tucks her hair behind her ears.

“You should have woken me up,” she says, all sullen defiance.

“I didn’t mind,” says Capable, truthfully. They stare at one another and Capable smiles a little and the girl’s eyes narrow a little. But it only takes a moment for her expression to slip and she laughs, looks away, and her cheeks are pink and Capable thinks she has never been so charmed by a blush.

“I’m sorry,” she says.

“It’s alright.” 

They stare at one another a while longer. Capable’s skin is tingling and she thinks she might be blushing too. She curls her fingers into her palms. She bites her lip. 

“Did you have bad dreams?” she asks then, made brave by laughter and being caught in the sky. The girl’s expression closes, she turns away and then looks back and then looks at her hands in her lap. Her hair falls across her face and she tucks it back again. She presses her thumbnail into the cuticle of the opposite thumb. “You were upset but I...but I helped you get back to sleep, I think.” 

“ _How_?” the girl demands, looking up, her expression fierce once more.

“I don’t know, I told you you were safe,” says Capable. “It was inappropriate, I’m sorry.” For a moment Capable thinks the girl is going to hit her, or scream, or cry. She does none of that, she shuts her eyes and presses her fingers to her right cheekbone, across the scars, like she’s reminding herself they’re there. 

“I’m Angharad,” she says finally, opening her eyes, taking her hand from her face and holding it out. Capable shakes it and she thinks perhaps she blushes again, her breath comes quick and sharp, and she smiles.

“I’m Capable.”

They talk for the rest of the flight, about music they like and movies they hate. Capable has a headphone splitter and they play each other songs and every time Angharad picks a love song Capable’s stomach drops. When they land Capable pulls Angharad’s luggage down from the overhead compartment and their hands touch when she passes it to her. They walk off the plane side by side. Angharad chases Capable’s bag when it gets away from them on the carousel. All of it seems far too close to the last minute they’ll be together and Capable bites her lip to keep from saying anything. It will be good enough as just a story, once upon a time she met a beautiful girl on a plane who had nightmares and knew the words to every Selena Gomez song.

They stand at the taxi stand and neither of them make a move to flag one down. Angharad still has Capable’s luggage, she’d insisted on wheeling it through the airport and Capable had been too overwhelmed to protest. 

“Come with me,” says Angharad suddenly, startling Capable out of her thoughts.

“What?”

“I’m going to see some friends, I think you’d like them, come with me.”

Capable only has to think about it for a moment. She’s in the city to see family but that’s not until tomorrow and Angharad is looking at her with her eyes bright and her lips parted and it’s really not a difficult decision to make. She nods and Angharad beams and then reaches out and tucks a lock of Capable’s hair behind her ear and Capable steps into the touch, closes her eyes for a beat too long, and when she opens them Angharad’s smile is even wider.

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading!


End file.
